As in I'm putting new things UP on the site.
I just realized that I haven't posted some essays from Valencia and/or a couple essays from last semester (and/or because I'm unsure, per usual).
Also, coming soon is the character college from The Crucible. (Which took a horrible amount of time to actually get around to making and then photographing.)
Titles include:
The Melancholy Minister and the Mischievous Cherubim
Dystopia: The Atrocious Reality of Utopia
The Failure of Sir Gawain: Fall of the Knight
A Release into Madness: Symbolism and Female Repression in "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Animosity, Abuse, and Ambition: Dysfunctional Family Relationships in As I Lay Dying
Life and Death in Leningrad - The Power of Literary Techniques
31 March 2011
14 March 2011
Acculturation versus Assimilation: Jemison and Rowlandson
Deborah Larsen’s novel, The White, depicts the capture of the sixteen year old Mary Jemison by a tribe of Seneca in Pennsylvania and her acculturation into their society. Mary Jemison’s capture and residence with the Seneca lies parallel to Mary Rowlandson’s historical captivity narrative only through the event of their kidnappings. Jemison’s capture is followed by a complete submersion into Native American culture while Rowlandson’s experience following her capture is filled with much of her own resistance; the juxtaposition of these two characters also provides differing perspectives on the ways in which both women view their Native American captors. Both texts also differ in sentence structure, use of the first-person point of view, and chapter division. In observing the events that follow their captures, the differences between both experiences are seen in highly dissimilar reactions to captivity, feelings toward others including God, and use of writing styles.
First, Larsen’s depiction of Jemison’s captivity begins with the young woman chopping wood outside her own home in south-central Pennsylvania. She is confronted by a Shawnee who grabs her arm and begins to drag her away; Jemison’s reaction appears apathetic, and she responds by thinking “Let him jerk her, let him jerk her arm until it hung loose at her shoulder” (Larsen 6). It is not until she sees her family and neighbors being dragged away that she reconsiders the prospect of death. Following her capture, Jemison does not speak until around the fourth day, when she tells the Shawnee and Frenchmen, “I want to die” (18); her lack of speech continues until she arrives at Fort Duquesne and is asked her name, and she answers, “My name is – Mary” (38); these are the only two instances in which Jemison speaks after her capture and before she injures herself on page 47. Her muteness is a result of initial shock, acute observation, and finally, apathy; however, following the discovery of her own voice within the text, she begins to slowly accept the Seneca culture. She observes that she had been named Two-Falling-Voices, “was already speaking Seneca” with the tribe, and “stood in a brother’s place” between two sisters who had lost their sibling in a battle with the English (48). Through these two minute actions, her acculturation begins and is progressed even further with her marriage to Sheninjee, a member of the Delaware. With him, she gives birth to a stillborn baby and then produces a healthy child who she names Thomas. By the time Thomas is born, Jemison is nearly submersed in Native American culture; she wears clothing similar to theirs and observes the land more acutely, smelling “animal dung on a path minutes before she saw it” and comparing her hair to “new fern foliage” (86). She is content with Sheninjee, her children, and the Seneca culture, and after Sheninjee has died and Jemison marries Hiokatoo, she proclaims her membership in the Seneca culture to Simon, an escaped slave: “‘But Simon. I am one of the Indians. I am a Seneca’” (154). Her conversion and acceptance of the Seneca culture presents Jemison as a brave, observant, and open-minded individual who is willing to acculturate into a society that is significantly unlike her own.
In contrast, Mary Rowlandson’s reaction to capture is drastically different; she writes that she used to think that “if the Indians should come, I should chuse rather to be killed by them than be taken alive” (Rowlandson 70). However, once the Narrhagansett arrive “with great numbers upon Lancaster,” she reconsiders, saying that when the “tryal [arrived] my mind changed…I chose rather to go along with those ravenous Beasts…” (70). This response is completely contrary to Mary Jemison’s tale, and depicts Rowlandson as a frightened child against Jemison’s initial obstinate and courageous demeanor. The first time the text indicates that Rowlandson speaks is when she asks her captors where her dead child is and “what they had done with it?” (75). Following this, she receives a Bible from “one of the Indians that came from the Medfield fight” and asks him if he thinks the Indians will “let [her] read”; he says yes (76). During her time with the Indians, Rowlandson is treated both harshly and kindly at different times by her master and various other members of the tribe; here, despite some negative interactions, she does not actively pursue her escape, but rather endures her captivity enough so that she remains a Christian among “the heathen” while temporarily adapting to their way of life (79). While with the Native Americans, Rowlandson begins to assimilate herself into the tribe as a temporary member and merchant, making “stockins”, a “shirt” and a “cap” for her mistress, King Philip, and a “sorry Indian” (79, 82-82). She is finally ransomed for “Twenty pounds,” but as she steps away from the Narrhagansett, many members of the tribe are disappointed to see her go, “shaking [her] by the hand, offering [her] a Hood and a Scarfe to ride in” (107). Rowlandson’s brief assimilation into the Narrhagansett tribe and subsequent return home show an unwillingness to permanently partake in Native American culture and the desire to stay within the bounds of Christianity.
In addition to both women’s experiences, their attitudes toward their family, captors, and God frequently contrast. Mary Jemison vehemently opposes Thomas, her father, from the start, blaming him for leading his family “like lambs to the slaughter” after settling in an area which was not densely populated by whites at the time (Larsen 4). She even goes so far as to say that “she positively didn’t know him…a man who had mentally abandoned his family” (12). She accuses him of becoming a “child” and further goes on to protest when Sheninjee proposes they name their second child “Thomas” in honor of her father (12, 82). The relationship with her mother is also strained subconsciously; when Jemison speaks of making corn cakes, she remembers “[patting] the meal mixture into what must have been very uneven cakes, for mother would follow me and reshape them, which hurt my feelings” (88). She even dreams that her dead mother visits her but is unsatisfied with Jemison’s life, always approaching “and star[ing] at Hiokatoo and my garb…she would cover her mouth with her hand” (123). Her attitude toward her captors begins as a prisoner-jailor link; however, as she is accepted into the Seneca society in the place of a lost brother, she begins to see her captors as family, and specifically the women, Branch and Slight-Wind, as sisters. Ironically, the Christian captive never once refers to the Native Americans as “savages” or “heathens,” which illustrates a capacity for her to refrain from all-encompassing hatred of her captors. Jemison’s relationship with God begins roughly immediately after her capture when she wonders, “Where was He who kept count of all the hairs of all people? Where was He now?” (17). Her doubt transforms into a mixture of altered religion as she imagines telling Thomas the story of Jonah and the whale, mixing a Christian based tale with elements from Native American culture like the “Good Spirit” (109).
In contrast, Rowlandson sees the attack upon her town of Lancaster as nothing more, or less, than a violent rampage against her Christian community. She fears for the lives of her family, including her sister and her sister’s children, and her neighbors. Immediately following her capture, she is separated from her son and her youngest child dies; these are her only comforts besides her Bible, which she receives from the “Medfield” Indian. Her ties to her family are very strong and positive compared to those of Jemison. Rowlandson’s negative nature toward the Narrhagansetts and other Native American tribes is initially highly vicious, and is peppered with name-calling: “mutherous wretches,” “merciless Heathen,” “Infidels,” and “hell-hounds” (Rowlandson 68-70). These slurs can be found from the beginning of Rowlandson’s narrative until five pages before it concludes; within these pages, however, generosities are presented to Rowlandson and she partakes of them willingly, and even reciprocates the kind deeds. Strangely, while Rowlandson’s jailers are offering her shelter, food, and payment for goods, they are all referred to as “heathens” throughout the first forty pages (68-108). Rowlandson’s relationship with God is very obvious from the beginning of her narrative; her account is called The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, and throughout the text there are innumerable references to scripture. She constantly calls on God in times of need, especially when her young child is dying in her arms. She says, “Oh, I may see the wonderfull power of God, that my Spirit did not utterly sink under my affliction,” and trusts that her prayers will be heard; they are received and they both lived “to see the light of the next morning” (73).
Structurally, Larsen’s novel and Rowlandson’s first-hand account of captivity differ solely in the fact that Mary Jemison’s “removes” or sections are not numbered, named, or suggested as being separate from each other. Rowlandson’s narrative is separated by the listing of twenty “removes” which mark her movement around the region. Jemison’s story is clean of any defining mark of time or place except for the listing of three sections of the novel: “Buchanan Valley, 1758,” “The Ohio Valley, 1758-1762,” and “The Genesee Valley, 1763-1833.” These only notify the reader of a general area and time of the events which take place, not a day by day account of her experience. This structure assists the reader in taking Jemison’s experience as a whole rather than in particular segments and allows for the “losing of time” in the reader’s mind in order to connect with Mary; as Hiokatoo lays sick in bed, a doctor comes to Mary and asks her, “How long have you been married?” (167). She responds, “A long time”; Mary’s perception of time has been blurred by her lack of a need to trace time because she has lived so contently with the Seneca.
Though Larsen’s novel contradicts Rowlandson’s account of her own capture, the book makes sly references to Rowlandson’s narrative as if to mock it. Beginning at the first page, Mary Jemison stares into the face of “what she would later learn was not an ‘Indian’s’ face but that of a Shawnee” (Larsen 3). Throughout Rowlandson’s narrative, she refers to the Narrhagansett, Wampanoag, and Nipmuc people as “Indians” in italics every time the word in the singular or plural form is used. Additionally, as Mary Jemison accidentally cuts herself with a knife and sees her own blood, she suddenly finds her voice in the text and says, “the body belonged to me alone” (Larsen 47). At this point, italics are introduced as a way for Jemison to speak for herself in the first-person point of view while portions of her story are told in the third-person by the omniscient narrator. Conversely, Rowlandson’s italics are used as a way to quote from the Bible; the act of quoting from another source limits Rowlandson’s voice instead of allowing her to elaborate in her own words. Bible passages are even used after Rowlandson has committed an act which portrays her exertion of agency, such as defying her master and transporting “the English man” to a fire to comfort him (Rowlandson 90). The passage that follows is “Pauls prayer, 2 Thess. 3.2. That we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men” (Rowlandson 90).
Jemison and Rowlandson present contrasting views in the field of captivity. In Mary Jemison’s experience, the reader is confronted with a stubborn, yet open-minded individual who willingly acculturates into a society very different from her own, and comes to see herself as a member of that culture. Rowlandson, however, presents a portrait of an unwilling, cautious, and skeptical Christian who fears for her life and the lives of her children no matter the circumstance. Although they differ significantly, Larsen’s novel and Mary Rowlandson’s historical account of her own captivity provide fascinating perspectives and insight into drastically different lives which were affected by Native American raids during early American colonization.
Works Cited
Larsen, Deborah. The White: a Novel. New York: Vintage, 2003. Print.
Rowlandson, Mary White. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed : Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and Related Documents. Ed. Neal Salisbury. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1997. Print.
First, Larsen’s depiction of Jemison’s captivity begins with the young woman chopping wood outside her own home in south-central Pennsylvania. She is confronted by a Shawnee who grabs her arm and begins to drag her away; Jemison’s reaction appears apathetic, and she responds by thinking “Let him jerk her, let him jerk her arm until it hung loose at her shoulder” (Larsen 6). It is not until she sees her family and neighbors being dragged away that she reconsiders the prospect of death. Following her capture, Jemison does not speak until around the fourth day, when she tells the Shawnee and Frenchmen, “I want to die” (18); her lack of speech continues until she arrives at Fort Duquesne and is asked her name, and she answers, “My name is – Mary” (38); these are the only two instances in which Jemison speaks after her capture and before she injures herself on page 47. Her muteness is a result of initial shock, acute observation, and finally, apathy; however, following the discovery of her own voice within the text, she begins to slowly accept the Seneca culture. She observes that she had been named Two-Falling-Voices, “was already speaking Seneca” with the tribe, and “stood in a brother’s place” between two sisters who had lost their sibling in a battle with the English (48). Through these two minute actions, her acculturation begins and is progressed even further with her marriage to Sheninjee, a member of the Delaware. With him, she gives birth to a stillborn baby and then produces a healthy child who she names Thomas. By the time Thomas is born, Jemison is nearly submersed in Native American culture; she wears clothing similar to theirs and observes the land more acutely, smelling “animal dung on a path minutes before she saw it” and comparing her hair to “new fern foliage” (86). She is content with Sheninjee, her children, and the Seneca culture, and after Sheninjee has died and Jemison marries Hiokatoo, she proclaims her membership in the Seneca culture to Simon, an escaped slave: “‘But Simon. I am one of the Indians. I am a Seneca’” (154). Her conversion and acceptance of the Seneca culture presents Jemison as a brave, observant, and open-minded individual who is willing to acculturate into a society that is significantly unlike her own.
In contrast, Mary Rowlandson’s reaction to capture is drastically different; she writes that she used to think that “if the Indians should come, I should chuse rather to be killed by them than be taken alive” (Rowlandson 70). However, once the Narrhagansett arrive “with great numbers upon Lancaster,” she reconsiders, saying that when the “tryal [arrived] my mind changed…I chose rather to go along with those ravenous Beasts…” (70). This response is completely contrary to Mary Jemison’s tale, and depicts Rowlandson as a frightened child against Jemison’s initial obstinate and courageous demeanor. The first time the text indicates that Rowlandson speaks is when she asks her captors where her dead child is and “what they had done with it?” (75). Following this, she receives a Bible from “one of the Indians that came from the Medfield fight” and asks him if he thinks the Indians will “let [her] read”; he says yes (76). During her time with the Indians, Rowlandson is treated both harshly and kindly at different times by her master and various other members of the tribe; here, despite some negative interactions, she does not actively pursue her escape, but rather endures her captivity enough so that she remains a Christian among “the heathen” while temporarily adapting to their way of life (79). While with the Native Americans, Rowlandson begins to assimilate herself into the tribe as a temporary member and merchant, making “stockins”, a “shirt” and a “cap” for her mistress, King Philip, and a “sorry Indian” (79, 82-82). She is finally ransomed for “Twenty pounds,” but as she steps away from the Narrhagansett, many members of the tribe are disappointed to see her go, “shaking [her] by the hand, offering [her] a Hood and a Scarfe to ride in” (107). Rowlandson’s brief assimilation into the Narrhagansett tribe and subsequent return home show an unwillingness to permanently partake in Native American culture and the desire to stay within the bounds of Christianity.
In addition to both women’s experiences, their attitudes toward their family, captors, and God frequently contrast. Mary Jemison vehemently opposes Thomas, her father, from the start, blaming him for leading his family “like lambs to the slaughter” after settling in an area which was not densely populated by whites at the time (Larsen 4). She even goes so far as to say that “she positively didn’t know him…a man who had mentally abandoned his family” (12). She accuses him of becoming a “child” and further goes on to protest when Sheninjee proposes they name their second child “Thomas” in honor of her father (12, 82). The relationship with her mother is also strained subconsciously; when Jemison speaks of making corn cakes, she remembers “[patting] the meal mixture into what must have been very uneven cakes, for mother would follow me and reshape them, which hurt my feelings” (88). She even dreams that her dead mother visits her but is unsatisfied with Jemison’s life, always approaching “and star[ing] at Hiokatoo and my garb…she would cover her mouth with her hand” (123). Her attitude toward her captors begins as a prisoner-jailor link; however, as she is accepted into the Seneca society in the place of a lost brother, she begins to see her captors as family, and specifically the women, Branch and Slight-Wind, as sisters. Ironically, the Christian captive never once refers to the Native Americans as “savages” or “heathens,” which illustrates a capacity for her to refrain from all-encompassing hatred of her captors. Jemison’s relationship with God begins roughly immediately after her capture when she wonders, “Where was He who kept count of all the hairs of all people? Where was He now?” (17). Her doubt transforms into a mixture of altered religion as she imagines telling Thomas the story of Jonah and the whale, mixing a Christian based tale with elements from Native American culture like the “Good Spirit” (109).
In contrast, Rowlandson sees the attack upon her town of Lancaster as nothing more, or less, than a violent rampage against her Christian community. She fears for the lives of her family, including her sister and her sister’s children, and her neighbors. Immediately following her capture, she is separated from her son and her youngest child dies; these are her only comforts besides her Bible, which she receives from the “Medfield” Indian. Her ties to her family are very strong and positive compared to those of Jemison. Rowlandson’s negative nature toward the Narrhagansetts and other Native American tribes is initially highly vicious, and is peppered with name-calling: “mutherous wretches,” “merciless Heathen,” “Infidels,” and “hell-hounds” (Rowlandson 68-70). These slurs can be found from the beginning of Rowlandson’s narrative until five pages before it concludes; within these pages, however, generosities are presented to Rowlandson and she partakes of them willingly, and even reciprocates the kind deeds. Strangely, while Rowlandson’s jailers are offering her shelter, food, and payment for goods, they are all referred to as “heathens” throughout the first forty pages (68-108). Rowlandson’s relationship with God is very obvious from the beginning of her narrative; her account is called The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, and throughout the text there are innumerable references to scripture. She constantly calls on God in times of need, especially when her young child is dying in her arms. She says, “Oh, I may see the wonderfull power of God, that my Spirit did not utterly sink under my affliction,” and trusts that her prayers will be heard; they are received and they both lived “to see the light of the next morning” (73).
Structurally, Larsen’s novel and Rowlandson’s first-hand account of captivity differ solely in the fact that Mary Jemison’s “removes” or sections are not numbered, named, or suggested as being separate from each other. Rowlandson’s narrative is separated by the listing of twenty “removes” which mark her movement around the region. Jemison’s story is clean of any defining mark of time or place except for the listing of three sections of the novel: “Buchanan Valley, 1758,” “The Ohio Valley, 1758-1762,” and “The Genesee Valley, 1763-1833.” These only notify the reader of a general area and time of the events which take place, not a day by day account of her experience. This structure assists the reader in taking Jemison’s experience as a whole rather than in particular segments and allows for the “losing of time” in the reader’s mind in order to connect with Mary; as Hiokatoo lays sick in bed, a doctor comes to Mary and asks her, “How long have you been married?” (167). She responds, “A long time”; Mary’s perception of time has been blurred by her lack of a need to trace time because she has lived so contently with the Seneca.
Though Larsen’s novel contradicts Rowlandson’s account of her own capture, the book makes sly references to Rowlandson’s narrative as if to mock it. Beginning at the first page, Mary Jemison stares into the face of “what she would later learn was not an ‘Indian’s’ face but that of a Shawnee” (Larsen 3). Throughout Rowlandson’s narrative, she refers to the Narrhagansett, Wampanoag, and Nipmuc people as “Indians” in italics every time the word in the singular or plural form is used. Additionally, as Mary Jemison accidentally cuts herself with a knife and sees her own blood, she suddenly finds her voice in the text and says, “the body belonged to me alone” (Larsen 47). At this point, italics are introduced as a way for Jemison to speak for herself in the first-person point of view while portions of her story are told in the third-person by the omniscient narrator. Conversely, Rowlandson’s italics are used as a way to quote from the Bible; the act of quoting from another source limits Rowlandson’s voice instead of allowing her to elaborate in her own words. Bible passages are even used after Rowlandson has committed an act which portrays her exertion of agency, such as defying her master and transporting “the English man” to a fire to comfort him (Rowlandson 90). The passage that follows is “Pauls prayer, 2 Thess. 3.2. That we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men” (Rowlandson 90).
Jemison and Rowlandson present contrasting views in the field of captivity. In Mary Jemison’s experience, the reader is confronted with a stubborn, yet open-minded individual who willingly acculturates into a society very different from her own, and comes to see herself as a member of that culture. Rowlandson, however, presents a portrait of an unwilling, cautious, and skeptical Christian who fears for her life and the lives of her children no matter the circumstance. Although they differ significantly, Larsen’s novel and Mary Rowlandson’s historical account of her own captivity provide fascinating perspectives and insight into drastically different lives which were affected by Native American raids during early American colonization.
Works Cited
Larsen, Deborah. The White: a Novel. New York: Vintage, 2003. Print.
Rowlandson, Mary White. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed : Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and Related Documents. Ed. Neal Salisbury. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1997. Print.
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